New rec center is a neighborhood jewel
 

The Adamsville Natatorium and Gymnasium, at 3201 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive in Atlanta, smells new. The polyeurethane coating on the gym floor is still unscuffed, and the smell of fresh asphalt permeates the parking lot. The recreation center, which offers fitness and dance classes, a weight room, and youth and senior citizen programming, officially opened June 21.

For the neighborhood kids who attend the Camp Best Friends day camp at the facility, the best part is the Olympic-size swimming pool.

It takes little prompting before Tiana Rogers, 6, and Raven Merritt, 7, begin to chat excitedly about their adventures in the pool.

"I like to swim in 3 feet!" Raven said.

Besides being big, new, and state-of-the-art, the pool represents something more important --- neighborhood pride.

"Now we don't have to go out to Anderson, Mozley, all those places," said Latasha Gordon, 12. "Now we have a place of our own."

"I feel like they have trusted us to build this, in our part of this city," said Jerrod Willingham, a 12-year-old who volunteers to help out with the younger kids at the camp. "No one will break in here, because they don't have the guts."

The camp's kids, who range in age from 6 to 12 , are so proud of the facility that they compete to be the first to show visitors the gym, the pool, the weight room.

The Natatorium and Gymnasium was 12 years in the making and cost a total of $18.3 million to design and build. The facility was originally slated to open in 2004. The early opening means that there is no established budget for the center, said Mayme Garrett, program administrator at the Department of Parks and Recreation. Operation is partially funded using the city's capital improvement funds while the 2004 budget is being compiled.

In addition to the day camp and swimming, the facility will offer classes in everything from youth cheerleading to arts and crafts for senior citizens, as well as several sports teams for kids and adults. Those programs, and others listed in the center's brochure, are funded and scheduled to begin by Sept. 1.

Tenth District Councilman C. T. Martin said he wants Martin Luther King Jr. Drive to be a credit to its namesake and its residents; an attractive and empowered neighborhood. "In this district are the citizens that stayed in Atlanta when everybody else left. They've been paying taxes a long time," he said. "That location [where the center is] used to be a run-down set of apartments that were just breeding drugs. And now it's something that provides services. It's something attractive."